Pumpkin
by monkeybait
Summary: Joshua calls Neku by his pet name too many times.


**If this story is based on anything, it's on the fact that I am constantly getting lost in this thing.**

Neku and Joshua walked along. It was another day in the game and while lots of important things were happening, right now it was one of those times when something not so important was. Neku was sufficiently bored, for one thing. His cell phone didn't even have any games on it, let alone allow him to call people. Joshua was chatting up a storm with Mr. Hanekoma, as Joshua did typically when he wasn't trying to pester the snot of Neku.

"… So then I said, 'Nuh-uh, girlfriend! You didn't just go there!'… But get this, then I didn't even get the slippers back! … I know, _right_?" Today's conversation seemed to be of little concern.

"Hey, Joshua," Neku said, but his partner ignored him. "Joshua! JOSHUA! HEY!!"

"Hold on just a sec. What is it, pumpkin?" Joshua asked, covering up the phone speaker as he turned to Neku.

Neku gritted his teeth. "What did I say… about calling me 'pumpkin'?!"

"You said to never to do it again or else you'd tear my lips off and throw them in the gutter," Joshua stated calmly.

"Exactly! So why would you do it?!" the angst-ridden redhead shouted.

"Because your face gets consistently more ridiculous every time I say it," replied Joshua shamelessly. "But never you mind; what's the haps?"

_Mental note: teach Joshua proper slang_, Neku noted mentally. "Get off your phone. Let's do something productive. Like something in the let's-get-our-butts-out-of-the-Game department."

"Oh, Neku," Joshua sighed, and patted Neku's spiky head in a way most demoralizing before returning to his unimportant phone call. Neku slicked his hair back. He hated it when Joshua did that. It was a maneuver he often used to aggravate Neku into shutting up. But today it wouldn't work! Today, Neku decided he would do something unspeakably evil in order to get back at Joshua!

"Hey, Joshua, can I talk to Mr. H too?" Neku pleaded.

"No, my phone," Joshua growled at once before going back to the call. "Oh, Neku just wanted to talk to you, that's all, I don't know why… Perhaps, but knowing Neku I doubt it was just for conversation's sake…"

Neku held out his hand and said more aggressively, "Give me your phone."

"Pumpkin, I already said no," Joshua protested, whining.

Neku steamed. "That does it!"

Neku swatted the phone out of Joshua's hands. Or at least, he thought he did; it was really more like he surprised Joshua into letting go and the phone flew out of his hands, just to clear up that logic.

Then the phone fell into the gutter.

"I told you I'd do it!" Neku yelled triumphantly. "It may not have been your lips, but that's good enough! In your… face…?"

But instead of accepting the taunts with his usual for-what-shall-I-care attitude, Joshua had begun sputtering and static jumped off him like a broken machine. His face was frozen in a position of utter shock and foam began spilling out of his mouth.

"Whoopsie," Neku mumbled. "Hey, Joshua? Yoo-hoo?"

Neku waved a hand in front of Joshua's face, to which Joshua responded by letting out a single hysterical sob but didn't blink.

"Drat." Neku snapped his fingers. "Well, I can't fight with you like this. Looks like I'll have to find Mr. Hanekoma to get you a new phone or something." And with that, Neku tucked Joshua under his arm like a plank of wood and sped off.

"I always get lost looking for this place. I hope Mr. H is there," Neku rambled to himself hurriedly. "I didn't mean to destroy Joshua's phone… I just wanted to mess with it… It looks like he was really attached to that thing… I'm surprised that wasn't his debt to pay when he first entered the game… Hey, a chocolate shop…"

* * *

Ten minutes and several cacao indulgences later…

"I arrways get rost rooking for thish prace," Neku rambled to himself, licking the last remaining chocolatey morsel off his thumb. "And side-tracked apparentry. Now I reed something to drink. But Mishter Harrekoma hash a coffee shop so I'rr just wait tirr I get there." So Neku kept walking. But after half an hour of walking around in circles, Neku was forced to drink out of a nearby fountain because his teeth were starting to cement together.

"Oh my sweet cow, where is this place?!" yelled Neku, because sweet cows aren't offensive to anyone's religious principles. "I need a map! Oh that's right, my phone has one…"

Neku looked at his phone's map.

"Are you serious?! How am I supposed to tell where the heck I am if every place is initialed?!" Neku freaked. "Mr. H's is the WildKat café… But where is that?! Oh-"

But before Neku could utter a discouraging word he was suddenly flocked by noise that noticed his partner was incapacitated.

"I'm in trouble," Neku said obviously and ran away for his life.

The noise chased Neku all around. Neku wasn't sure how they managed to do that, but somehow they were.

"I'll hide in a store!" Neku thought. "Boy I'm a genius!"

But the noise blocked all the doors.

"I'm gonna die! Or re-die! I guess that would be it…" Before Neku could make up his mind, he and Joshua were engulfed in monsters.

"Oh no! This sucks! I'm gonna die! For, what is it now, the third time?! Technically second?! … In any case, I'm gonna die!" Then Neku put on his game face. It was not like him to spaz like this. "Okay, self… Let's take a chill pill and fight anyway!"

So Neku ran forward and fought with all his might. He burned things and froze things like there was no tomorrow (which there may not be, so…). But it wasn't as hard as he'd expected. The noise died pretty quickly.

"Maybe I'm just awesome like that," Neku thought proudly.

As he shoved a punch in the final frog's nose, lots of pins rained down from the sky. It was the biggest haul Neku had ever gotten but he was kind of too exhausted to pick up all the pins so he just picked up the yellow ten thousand yen ones.

"I'm rich… Yay." Neku grinned, now three teeth missing; somewhere, a dentist bursts into tears and they aren't sure why. "Poor Joshua. He's still unconscious."

"Hey. Neku."

Neku spun around.

"Mr. H! It's you!" Neku yelled. "Hey! Uh, why can you see me?"

Mr. Hanekoma dug his hand into his pocket. "Let's save that question for a rainy day."

"Fair enough."

"I found Joshua's phone." Mr. Hanekoma took his hand back out with the yellow device sitting in his palm. "It came out when I turned on the faucet."

"Wow! You did find it! How is that possible?" Neku questioned.

Mr. H shrugged. "Liquefying app. It turns your phone into a liquid when it touches water so it won't explode otherwise."

"That's amazing," Neku gawked.

"Wh… Where's my baby?" Joshua coughed, coming out of his coma.

"Right here." Mr. Hanekoma handed it over.

"Leave us alone. We need a moment." Joshua was getting misty-eyed, so Mr. H and Neku walked away awkwardly.

"Gee, life sure is confusing," Neku said, scratching his fluffy head.

"Your face is covered in chocolate," Mr. H observed. "And I was the one helping you defeat those noise. And you get lost really easily."

"Yes, well," Neku started, smudging his mouth off on his sleeve, which looked strange because his sleeves are quite far up on his shoulders, "I only have the suckiest map ever."

Mr. H decided now was not the time to tell Neku he was the one who made that map.

"Okay, I'm alright now. Let's go, Neku," Joshua said, walking up to them. "Thanks, Mr. H."

"Anytime." Mr. H and Joshua high-fived quite unmasculinely and then he scurried back to his shop.

"Hey, Joshua, aren't you mad at me for losing your phone?" Neku asked tentatively.

"I suppose." Joshua stroked his phone's antennae in thought. "But I suppose I shouldn't have ignored you so. I know how much you love attention, pumpkin."

"Well, we should-" Neku stopped as he realized what Joshua said. "You- You little-! That's what started this whole-!"

And then Neku did utter several discouraging words that Joshua ignored because he was so delighted to have his phone back. And they never did do the mission… Oh well, someone else did. THE END.


End file.
